


The Wolf That Ne'er Would Tame

by mugsandpugs



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Brain Surgery, Healing, Indian Harry Potter, M/M, Past Regulus/Snape, Tam Lin references, Wartime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:47:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29957052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mugsandpugs/pseuds/mugsandpugs
Summary: AU where Harry is raised by the OOTP, rather than being taken to the Dursleys.Snape accidentally forms a magical bond with the infant while protecting him from his new scar. Remus is there to help.
Relationships: Remus Lupin/Severus Snape
Kudos: 39





	The Wolf That Ne'er Would Tame

**Author's Note:**

> I thought this fic was lost to the ether, but found it just now digging through my drafts, and thought I would upload it to the archive before I lose it again. You can view it as a one-shot, or as incomplete, but I'm not writing any more of it. If you want to take this idea and add to it, you're welcome to!

_ “Then I’ll appear in your arms _

_ Like the wolf that ne’er would tame; _

_ Ye’ll had me fast, lat me not go, _

_ Case we ne’er meet again.” _

  * _The Ballad of Tam Lin_



...

Despite her enormously pregnant belly, Molly Weasley made no complaints at their rough landing. When her too-big boots (no doubt purchased second - hand) caused her to stumble on an ice-slicked grassy mound, Severus caught her shoulder to steady her.

"Thank you, petal," she panted, distracted, and then flushed, quickly pulling her gloved hand away from his. "Ah... I mean. Thank you, Severus."

Even the maternal Molly Weasley would never choose to use a pet name for Hogwarts' newest spider.

Without a word, the young man plucked the portkey -- an egg cup -- from Molly's hand and slipped it into his coat pocket. It would be activated again in ten minutes, so Severus had to move fast to collect the replacement babysitter for Potter's son.

He's Lily's son, too, his treacherous mind reminded him, and he swatted the pesky thought away like one of the many midges that now swarmed his face. Why did the Weasley property have to be so soggy?!

Yes. The infant had come from Lily Evans.

And Lily was dead.

Molly blathered in his ear, leading him from the near-empty field up to the crooked mishmash of a house on the hill. "Watch your step; I'm always telling Arthur to fill the kneazle holes before someone breaks an ankle, but do you think he listens?! It's always “yes, Molly,” and then he goes right back to whatever nonsense he was doing before..."

For a woman eight months pregnant, Molly was a fast walker. Her stumpy legs made quick work dodging the naked apple trees. Though she wore a strong disillusionment charm to blend in with the surroundings, her breath escaped her in puffy white clouds.

Severus, a tall, lanky man just out of his teens, had to work to keep up. His boots left deep impressions in the slushy snow that he then vanished with a flick of his wand.

His presence at the Burrow had to remain a secret. The life of the last remaining Potter depended on it.

He and Molly ascended the hill that led to her house, an inviting bastian against the late November frost. The many chimneys all emitted colorful smoke. Severus caught an inviting whiff of gingerbread and coffee.

A few steps from the door, Molly stopped him, catching his arm. "We have defense charms that can only be lowered from the inside."

Of course. Many magical families still had such precautions, though the Dark Lord had been vanquished nearly a month ago. He watched the woman as she closed her eyes, drew her wand, and conjured her patronus.

Severus had never seen Molly's patronus before, and raised his eyebrows when a seven-foot-tall grizzly bear loomed over them, silent and silver and ferocious.

"Tell Billy "Mummy's home!" please," Molly instructed her patronus, which huffed, turned, and lumbered away, disappearing through the wall of her house.

The two adults waited patiently. After a minute, Severus felt his ears pop as invisible defenses were lowered. Then the front door opened, and a child peered out at them.

"Mum?" he asked, eyes scanning the surroundings. He held an old wand in his fist, though he was too young to have one of his own.

"Billy!" Molly remembered that she was still wearing the disillusionment charm. She rapped her head with her wand and slowly came back to color; vibrant red hair and freckles and pillowy pink lips.

Bill Weasley focused on his mother, but did not yet step aside. Nor did Molly approach her son. "What did Percy get for his last birthday?" he asked, staunch and serious as only children raised in wartime can be.

"New socks, strawberry lollies, and that night he came down with a case of dragonpox," Molly replied calmly. She'd lost two brothers in the war. Of course she would teach her children to be cautious.

A smile creased the ten-year-old's face. He deposited the wand into an umbrella stand by the door and held his arms open for a hug. "Mum!"

Molly hastened to her son, who was nearly as tall as she already. She peppered his face with kisses, and he didn't resist in the slightest; only giggled. "Mummy, Ron puked all over Remus!"

Severus froze. Remus Lupin? But he'd been told he was picking up Andromeda Tonks from the Burrow. He hadn't signed up to deal with the wolf!

A younger boy approached, standing at Bill's side. He held a chubby, diaper-clad baby on one hip. "He's sick," the child informed his mother. "We dipped his dummy in Pepperup, so he stopped puking, but he still has a fever."

Molly lifted the baby called Ron, stroking his gingery hair.

Still sucking his doctored pacifier, he laid his head on his mother's ample chest and closed his eyes tiredly.

"Poor Ronnie," she cooed, swaying him gently. She turned her face to kiss his forehead. Her free hand stroked the hair of the second boy. "You take some Pepperup too, Charlie. I don't want a whole house of sick boys."

Severus, still Disillusioned, stepped in behind Molly, crossing the threshold on silent feet. He didn't particularly want to be interrogated by a clan of redheads. And besides; it was cold and windy on the stoop.

The Weasley house was just as shabby on the inside as it was on the outside. The furniture was all second (or third, or fourth) hand. Toys and books and tiny articles of clothing littered every flat surface.

The chicken coop had been spelled into the living room, as the winter was particularly bitter. It emitted soft, sleepy clucks.

In some ways, it was very like Severus's childhood home. They'd never had any money, either.

Unlike the Prince-Snape house, however, the place was full and vibrant, the walls practically vibrating with love.

Picking over a set of gobstones, Severus followed the scent of coffee to the kitchen. Molly had been gone for several days. Snape rolled his eyes at the sight of a sink overflowing with dirty dishes. Was Arthur incapable of casting a simple cleaning charm?

He would've done it himself, just to prove a point, but then his eyes fell on yet another boy at the kitchen table. This one was perhaps six years old and wore a pair of oversized glasses. He perched on a chair with his legs folded under him, pouring over a workbook. And sitting next to him was...

"You're doing well," Remus told the boy, checking his work. "Subtraction can be difficult. Take away seven from thirteen, and you get...?"

"Er," the boy tapped the workbook with his quill, thinking it over. "Ah… Six?"

"Wonderful, Percy. Do you think you're ready to move onto larger numbers?"

Well, at least one Weasley wouldn't be a complete dunderhead. It sometimes astounded Severus how many wizarding children couldn't do simple maths. Potions required a lot of it; measuring, weighing, anticipating probabilities...

Severus flinched when the wooden floor creaked under his boot. In a second, the mild-mannered man transformed into a soldier, wand drawn. He seized Percy's chair and shoved it back, standing protectively before it in a dueling position.

"Who's there?!" he demanded, looking in the general direction Severus had been. "Show yourself!"

Well. No sense in letting the idiot fire off curses in an enclosed space. He passed himself off as level-headed, but really he was reckless as any Gryffindor.

In a sardonic voice, Severus marvelled, "Oh? You intend to fight me in that form? But you're so much more effective slobbering on four paws."

Surprise flitted Remus's wan face, then resignation. He pocketed his wand. "Snape. I was wondering when you'd come."

In response, Severus wordlessly cut his disillusionment, appearing in full color to the room. Peeping from behind Lupin's back, Percy boggled.

"I can't say I feel the same way," Severus replied silkily. "I'd been under the impression I was taking Andromeda to Hogwarts."

"Her little girl is sick," said Remus. He had knocked his coffee mug over in his panic, and now began to magic the stains off of Percy's workbook. "Nymphodora. This weather is making everyone poorly. So, I'm filling in."

Remus moved Percy's chair back into its original position and adjusted his misaligned glasses for him. "I'm sorry I frightened you," he murmured to the child. "It's alright. Snape is a friend."

Snape ground his teeth at the insult. Remus John Lupin was no friend of his!

Molly Weasley appeared in the doorway. "Is everything alright?" she asked, still holding her youngest son.

Remus nodded. "I was only startled," he promised. "I hope you don't mind that I borrowed one of Arthur's shirts -- poor Ron was sick on my sweater. I'll owl it back to you when I can."

Though he was the same age as Severus, Remus looked older; his face lined, his sandy hair going prematurely gray. Lycanthropy wreaked havoc on the body. Few werewolves made it to fifty.

Perhaps Severus should feel vindicated by the thought. Instead, he only felt tired.

"We have two minutes until the portkey activates," he informed Remus. "If you're coming with me, you'd best get ready now." Loathe as he was to take the man, it was still preferable to babysitting Potter himself.

Remus nodded and lifted a shabby travel bag from the counter. He clapped Percy on the shoulder and dropped a kiss onto Molly's cheek.

"Thank you for having me," he told her.

"Thank you for looking after the children while Arthur was away," she replied.

When Remus approached Severus, the taller man locked eyes with him, holding the portkey slightly out of Lupin's reach. Lupin deferred, dropping his gaze, lowering his shoulders.

It was a subtle shift in body language, but Severus read it just fine. Snape was in charge. Remus would follow his lead.

With this established, Severus held the egg cup out. Remus touched it with two fingers.   
  
There was an awkward pause of perhaps thirty seconds, and then Severus felt a familiar jerking sensation as he and Remus were transported out of the Weasley's kitchen and into the air high above the Scottish highlands. Remus's suspended body lightly bumped into his own as they travelled faster than any dragon.

He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing, bending his knees to take the impact as they landed inside Hogwarts's north tower. If he'd been hoping for Remus to stumble and fall, he was sorely disappointed.

Severus cleared his throat, already turning his back on the other man as he made for the staircase, wishing only to disappear into the haven of his beloved, silent, private dungeons. "Potter is in the third room on the right. There's a bed there for you, too. Password is 'Eleftheria.' An elf will be by shortly to bring you anything you need."

"Snape," Remus called to his retreating back. "Wait, please--"

There was something off about the werewolf's voice. Despite his better misgivings, Snape turned to regard the other man, and was startled to see something like pain in the werewolf's eyes. He was twisting his fingers anxiously.

"Is he..." Remus swallowed, fiddling with the cuffs of Arthur's overlarge shirt. "Is the boy... Does he look  _ very _ like James?"

... Oh.

Yes. Lupin wouldn't have seen much of the baby. The Potters had gone into hiding shortly before Harry’s birth, and he had been occupied with Order business. It had been less than a month since Lily and James's murders. Remus was likely still in mourning.

"He does," Severus told him begrudgingly. Having a babysitter cry all over the boy wouldn't do. Best give him the chance to brace himself. "I'm told he's quiet and easy to manage, so you shouldn't have too difficult a time. Apply dittany to his forehead as needed; the wound is healing slowly."

Lupin didn't look particularly pleased by this news, but he did look better prepared to handle it. He gave a single, curt nod.

Snape hesitated, a question worming onto his tongue. His pride battled his conscience until he relented and asked, "You haven't heard news of Regulus, have you?"

Regulus Black had disappeared without a trace some three years prior. Even the servants of the Dark Lord scarcely seemed to remember him. He was almost certainly dead, but the utter lack of information was slowly driving Snape mad. It was as they said: War was hell.

Remus looked taken aback by the question. Swimming through the forefront of his mind, Severus caught a glimpse of a small, dark-haired child, scuttling in his brother's footsteps. That was how Remus remembered the boy: a shadow to the superior Black.

"I haven't," Remus replied. "I haven't been in contact with the Black family since Sirius..."

Since he’d murdered thirteen people and led the Dark Lord straight to the Potters' doorstep.

For a brief moment, Lupin and Snape were united in one thing: The mutual hatred of one man. Sirius Orion Black deserved a kiss from every dementor in Azkaban.

Then some of Remus's fury peeled away to reveal what truly lay beneath: aching, bone-deep sadness. In one terrible week, he had lost three of his closest, lifelong friends. He hadn't managed to regain his footing since. In Remus's mind, Severus saw weeks worth of binge-drinking, forgotten meals, and fourteen-hour naps.

It looked distressingly similar to Severus's past month, if he was being truthful with himself.

Whatever. He didn't have it in him to carry the wolf's grief. He was overburdened with his own already. Severus flicked a speck of nonexistent lint from his cloak and turned his back once more, hastening down the tower's twisting staircase.

This time, Remus let him go.

…

If Severus hadn't joined the Death Eaters, he likely would have gotten a Muggle job.

It wasn't terribly uncommon, especially when the economy was poor. Half-bloods and Muggle-borns had that advantage over the purebloods.

He could see himself working in a record shop, perhaps. Selling discs of Queen and The Cure and Led Zeppelin in a dark shop that always smelled faintly of marajuana.

He'd have his own place; that was a given. Severus Snape had had seven years too many of sharing a sleeping space with other boys, always rooting through his things; "borrowing" without asking; masturbating in the showers.

Perhaps, when inspiration struck, he'd invent and sell a new potion; a new spell. But the important part remained: He would have quiet. He would have privacy. He would at long last be able to breathe.

But then seventh year arrived, and Regulus Black happened to him. Happened, like an earthquake, or a disease. He'd been all Black good looks: hooded eyes and a too-wide mouth; clever hands quick with a knife or a cigarette... or with the buttons on Severus's cloak.

"C'mon, Sev," he'd cajoled during a rare moment of pillowtalk-- rare, as their encounters were always fast and hot and ended with Regulus zipping his trousers up and walking briskly away. "You know they want you. More'n they want me. You're clever. You're talented."

Severus had snorted, fidgeting with his sleeves. His self-consciousness prevented him from ever getting fully undressed. He was spindly and awkward and ill-proportioned, while Regulus...

Regulus was perfect.

"They don't want me, Reg," he'd reminded the younger boy. "I'm a half-blood, remember? They only want the charming products of inbreeding, such as yourself."

Regulus grinned, teeth white and sharp, and smacked the other Slytherin with his own pillow. "Only Sirius has to marry a cousin and produce a "pure heir." Nobody gives two damns what I do."

Severus had looked at him, lounging on his side in Severus's bed as though it, like all the rest of the world, belonged to him. His hair was a rich jet black; his eyes equally dark inkdrops between lashes a mile long. His clear skin glowed caramel in the dim light leaking through the bedcurtains.   
  
What in the seven hells was he  _ doing,  _ tumbling a wreck like Severus? He could have any girl and half the boys at Hogwarts. He probably  _ did _ have them, come to that, but it was Severus he always seemed to return to, time and again.

Snape seldom allowed himself the luxury of tenderness, but when he reached to tuck that long hair behind the shell of his ear, Regulus did not push him away.

"C'mon, Sev," he'd wheedled, catching onto his hand. "There are other half-bloods serving Him. If anyone gives you shit for it, I'll jinx their intestines into knots. Just come to one meeting with me. You'll see... It'll change your life. I know you love the taste of power."

His eyes took on the heat of proposition, and he turned his head, catching Severus's thumb between his teeth.

Snape's heart had leapt into his throat. His mouth going dry, he allowed the other boy to roll him into the blankets.

"Alright," he'd weakly agreed. "Just the one, then."

...

Severus had cast enough warning charms around the dungeons he now called home to skin a shrivelfig. Even after drinking himself to sleep for the umpteenth night in a row, he was well protected.

When a sapient being crossed the threshold, Severus's pillow silently vibrated.

It was a useful charm, waking him without alerting the potential enemy. He'd cast a similar spell on his pillow at home when he was twelve, so that his father could no longer surprise him with drunken midnight beatings. He couldn't stop them from happening, but at least he'd be prepared.

He was no longer twelve years old. He was capable of stopping a great number of things that wished him harm. His hand slipped beneath his pillow. He curled his fingers around the blackthorn handle of his wand, contemplating which wordless curse to begin with.

Apparently, however, the intruder didn't feel the need to be stealthy. "Master Snape?" queried a high, squeaky voice. "Master Snape, please wake up, sir; it's an emergency."

A house elf. Or an enemy very skilled at imitating their particular tone and cadence. Severus sat up fast and cast a wordless spell to make the fire in his grate leap to full, roaring life.

The elf in his doorway cringed, covering her face in fear. Her batlike ears swivelled flat against her bald skull.

Severus sighed and lowered his wand, rubbing the migraine from his temples. "What do you want?" he asked. Glowing yellow eyes peeped at him from between long, multi-jointed fingers.

"It's the baby, sir; Master Lupin asked Trimble to fetch you, sir, and you alone. Hurry, hurry!"   
  
Severus stood from his bed. He'd transfigured the furniture after Dumbledore gave him the space, replacing cushy (flammable) fabrics and carpets with stone and metal. His bed was a narrow afterthought, crammed into one corner with the bedcurtains torn down. Books were removed from shelves and piled on the floor.

Every flat surface was covered in small, contained fires; cauldrons; ingredients. Baskets of hanging plants. Jars of insects and liquids and severed body parts, from human and animal and creature. The smell —  _ smells,  _ rather — were thick and overwhelming and indescribable.

A tricky series of spells allowed moonlight to shine in through the closet, though the dungeons were deep underground. In there, some of the lunar-based potions brewed. In compromise, his clothes were crammed beneath the bed.   
  
Severus had been living here since the first of October, and already it was unrecognizable from what it once had been.

It was all this that Trimble gawked at as Severus donned his musty dressing gowns, spelled his hair flat (if not clean), and snatched his largest potions bag.

"Well?" he asked the elf, who peered up at him as though facing down the beast of her nightmares.

"W-What is it Master Snape wants from Trimble?" she asked, voice quavering.

Snape bit back the urge to be cutting and dove into his bag, popping the cork from a home-brewed sobriety tonic. One swig, and in a horrible instant that left him shaken and sore, all the alcohol in his system evaporated through his skin, leaving him rank and damp. A second flick of his wand alleviated the worst of the rancid smell.

His particular home brew wasn’t exactly  _ medically advisable. _ It would never be patented and sold on store shelves. But Snape had never cared what happened to his body, so long as his mind remained somewhat intact.

"Well," he said again to Trimble, smacking the dryness from his suddenly fuzzy tongue. "Unless you've brought a portkey, you'll need to apparate for me. Humans cannot do so on Hogwarts grounds, and my presence in the castle is a secret until the term ends. I can't very well go roaming around the castle."

Professor Slughorn would be retiring in May. Come September, former Death Eater Severus Snape would become the potions instructor of Hogwarts. He would be teaching everyone from gunshy first-years to students scarcely younger than himself.

If he thought about that for too long, the urge to vomit tripped into his consciousness. He forced it aside and offered his hand to the little creature before him.   
  
She took it, wrapping her fingers around his, and snapped her fingers. With a crack like a gunshot, man and elf disapperated.

Side-arm aparation by elf was marginally more pleasant than by human. They passed through the same dimension; the sucking void in the wrinkle between the fabrics of time and space, where all was a dark, airless vacuum. But the landing was more accurate, and there was less risk of splinching. Severus just managed to keep his footing as they manifested before the East tower entrance.

"This is where Trimble leaves you, sir," the little elf said, withdrawing her hand from his. "Master Lupin instructed Trimble to fetch Headmaster Dumbledore."

She was gone in another snap, leaving Snape wondering: why had Lupin insisted she fetch him, first?

A life-sized ceramic figure of Janet from the Scottish ballad paced before the tower’s staircase, wrestling with the ever-shapeshifting form of her lover, Tam Lin.

One moment, Tam Lin was a goose, beating his wings and thrashing. The next, he was a snake, slipping and slithering to escape her fingers. When he became a boar, Janet dropped to her knees, cracking one fragile patella, and threw a leg over his back.

Severus cleared his throat until Janet looked up at him, pleading silently for the terrible night to end; for Tam Lin to be released from the faerie queen's enchantment.

In a deep, practiced voice, Severus told her, "Hold him fast, let not him go; er ne'er meet again."

Her eyes widened in surprise. With a cry, she slipped off of the boar's back, and the creature charged at Severus, squealing, tusks enormous and aimed for his stomach.

Snape closed his eyes and stood his ground, He half expected to be gored by three hundred pounds of ceramic pig.

When he opened them again, however, it was a wolf leaping at him, paws outstretched. Without thinking, Severus caught Tam Lin in his arms, falling back against the wall as the cold clay form writhed and bit painfully into Severus’s shoulder, mauling him with a bestial growl.

He doubled his efforts to hold the wolf fast, taking up Janet's promise with the faerie queen. To release Tam Lin now would be to lose Janet’s lover forever.   
  
The wolf twisted; Snape tripped, and then fell through the floor. Playful, harmless flames licked at Severus's skin as he descended, and he was spinning, spinning...

A nauseating moment passed, and then the glossy ceramic wolf in his arms was replaced with solid human warmth. The musky, doggish scent that always clung to Remus Lupin filled Snape's sensitive nostrils.

"Snape!" Remus grunted, supporting the other man's full weight. "Snape, you're too heavy... Please stand up straight..."

Bewildered, Severus did as instructed, getting his feet under him and unlocking his legs. His shoulder appeared miraculously healed, as though no statue had been gnawing on it at all.

Satisfied that Snape was no longer about to fall and break his nose on the stone floor, Remus released him and took a respectful step back.

"What on earth..." Severus muttered, looking around. His ribs ached from how tightly Lupin had gripped him.

He found himself inside the curved walls of a tower, the stone walls insulated with thick floral wallpaper. The room was sparse, featuring a rumpled bed, a night-table with two drawers for personal belongings, a gas stove with an unused silver kettle, and a baby's basinet. A door by the foot of the bed led, presumably, to the lavatory.

"What happened?" Remus asked, straightening his pajamas. "One moment there was nothing, and the next you came flying out of the fireplace!"

"Dumbledore's idea of a joke, I suspect," Severus snarled, his dignity bruised. "I was told to recite key lines from 'The Ballad of Tam Lin' to the statue of Janet, and that she would lead me to the tower entrance. I didn't know there were floos involved."

"Perhaps Albus wanted to ensure that the person accessing the tower was off their guard, so that the babysitter would be able to disarm them if they were a threat," Remus pointed out with infuriating rationale.

This was a fair point. If Remus had wanted to attack Severus, he would have had an easy job doing it.

Severus jerked a nod of begrudging respect, at his moment of vulnerability. "I was informed there was an emergency with the infant?"

His lips had wanted to say 'brat.' His brain was too fatigued to tiff with self-righteous werewolves.

Remus's rather tan face went pale. Without a word, he led Severus to the basinet, drawing filmy white curtains aside. "About an hour ago, he became fussy. Suspecting digestive troubles, I rubbed his stomach; burped him... But his skin became very hot. I thought perhaps I'd carried the Weasley's illness on my clothes... But these aren't normal flu symptoms."

Severus, who had been about to demand to know  _ what  _ wasn't normal, froze when he caught sight of the baby.

At just over a year old, Harry Potter was on the smaller end of the spectrum. Thinking back, Severus seemed to recall that James had been an undersized little twerp until sixth year, himself.

The baby's light brown skin (ginger mother or no, his Indian heritage was undeniable) had gone an ashy gray. The headwound the Dark Lord gave him appeared to be inflamed, even under the thick layer of dittany Remus had rubbed there.

His emerald eyes were glassy, staring unblinkingly up at the ceiling. His parted lips were a deep blue. His little body was motionless, lying flat on his back. Without the shallow rise and fall of his chest, Severus would have sworn he was dead.

Remus was right. This was not the flu.

"I performed Muggle CPR and chest compressions until you came," Remus said, anxiously hovering at Severus's side. He was wringing his hands. "Snape, what's wrong?!"

In response, Severus reached and opened the buttons on Harry's pajamas, baring his chest. He leaned forward to press his ear to the smooth skin there, listening to his heartbeat. Faint, but steady.

Harry's breath brushed Severus's cheek. Snape closed his eyes and inhaled, smelling the sweet clot of milk... And something more base, just beneath.

He stayed still, letting his brain puzzle through the possibilities. He was no healer, though the study of potions and the study of healing often took parallel paths.  _ Why _ did this baby's breath smell like drain cleaner?!

Snape's eyes flew open. "Fetch my wand," he told Lupin in a sharp clip. "And my bag. Hurry."

Without checking to see if Lupin obeyed his order, Severus crossed the baby's arms over his chest and lifted, cupping his throat, laying him facedown over his forearm like he was a hanging dish towel. 

He touched his free thumb to the soft dip at the top of Harry's spine and felt immense heat; a steady throb as the unfused, baby-soft plates of his skull shifted around what grew beneath.

Harry's brain, damaged from the killing curse sent his way three weeks prior, was at last starting to rebel. To push and strain against its confines. Dittany hadn't been healing the infection. It had done no more good than putting a sticker on a bullethole.    
  
"What's happening?" Lupin asked, truly panicked now. "Snape..."

"I need dittany, murtlap, and my smallest, sharpest knife."

"Why do you need a knife?!" Lupin's voice cracked on the last syllable and, for the briefest moment, he looked as young as he truly was. Young, and pale, and terrified. "Tell me what's happening!"

"His brain is swelling," Severus snapped. "It's full of fluid. It's not getting any oxygen, and so he's drowning. If we don't act now, irreversible damage or death will follow. Get me some ice, and a... a place to lie him down inside. Does he have a bath?"

Oddly, now that Lupin knew what the problem was, a determined calm seemed to overtake him. Now that he was no longer flailing in the dark, he was once more the soldier he carried himself as.

He did as Severus asked: Potions and knife were given. A baby's plastic bathtub was charmed full of ice water. Severus laid the motionless infant inside of it, clothes and all, propping that tiny, dark-tufted head against the lip so that he would not slip underneath.

If Lupin was surprised at Snape for using Muggle remedies, he kept his mouth shut about it. This was for the best: Snape didn't want to trust himself with magic for something so fragile.

At Snape's order, Lupin took Harry's face between his hands, tilting it to the side. It was a simple flick of the wand to shave off a patch of dark hair near the base of his neck, leaving the skin beneath bare.

It was less than ideal to mix murtlap with dittany without so much as his measuring scales, but Severus was familiar enough with each potions' properties to feel confident about the ratio. Dittany was applied to Harry’s bare patch of scalp to kill any germs or contaminants lingering there, on both Harry's skin, and Severus's fingers.

Numbing murtlap came after the dittany began to dry.

"Why--" Remus started to ask, wrinkling his overly sensitive nose at the bitter brine of pickled tentacles.

"Because I don't imagine somebody carving into your bones feels particularly pleasant, wolf! Try to keep up."

_ "Carving!" _

"Would you prefer to take the time to fetch Dumbledore? To summon a proper Healer from St. Mungos, explain to them that, yes, we _ are _ secretly housing the infant that vanquished the Dark Lord, and oh dear, he appears to be experiencing a cerebral edema? To ask if they'd be so kind as to take care of that little problem for us? Harry is drowning as we speak, by the way."

"I only--"

"And then what, Lupin? Do we perform a memory charm on that Healer? We know those can be cracked by a powerful enough wizard. Do you want every Death Eater in Britain to know where Harry is hiding?!"

As he spoke, Severus felt Remus's eyes flick down to Snape's arms; at his rolled up sleeves. Remus regarded the faded tattoo of a skull and an ever-slithering serpent, sliding through the eye sockets; out one ear; into the jaw. Would Remus be able to accept a former Death Eater “carving” into the skull of his deceased friend’s only son? Would he be able to trust Severus enough for that?

At long last, he bit his lip, dropped his head, and heaved a deep sigh. "Don't fuck this up, Snape."

Well, well! Bookish, responsible Lupin, using foul language! If the situation weren't so dire, Severus would've surely mocked him for it.

Instead, he summoned his sharpest scalpel, dipped it into the dittany, and set to work. To Lupin's credit, he kept Harry's head perfectly still, and did not flinch too noticeably at the noises of a magically sharpened knife cutting into bone.

"If you're capable of wandless magic," Severus muttered as he worked. "An ‘et aridam’ would be useful."

"What, can't you do it?"

"Lupin!"

The spell was performed, and the blood soaking Severus's fingers, making his grip slip, dried into powder. At the source of Harry’s wound, it slowed, also; clotting more quickly, giving him less of a chance to bleed out into the ice water.

Severus's hands were his greatest tool. Long-fingered and spindly, he’d developed excellent control over them in his decade and a half of potions brewing. The piece of Harry’s skull he removed was the exact size and shape of a silver sickle, and never once did the tip of his scalpel threaten the inflamed brain throbbing just beneath.   
  
When he handed the disc of bone to Remus, he feared the man was going to faint.

"Don't you dare," Severus snarled fiercely at him. "I need you here, damn you!"

Remus, who's face had gone so white he almost appeared blue, gulped for breath and straightened his quaking knees. He squared his shoulders and nodded for Severus to go on.

Setting his knife aside, Severus took up his wand. It wasn't enough to draw out the excess fluid that filled Harry's skull; he had to keep the delicate balance intact. The nerves, the spine, The chemicals inside. This was exceptionally advanced magic; things he wasn't qualified for in the least.

He did not have a choice. He could not fail. The fate of the wizarding world depending on it, and, more importantly, so did Lily's lineage.

When Severus began to sing, Remus gave him a look like he'd quite lost his mind. Severus closed his eyes so he wouldn't be distracted. It was as he always did when he invented, or discovered, new ways to tap into the magic that filled every witch or wizard.

He saw his own magic, sitting inside the core of his body like a multi-forked tree, roots deep and limbs branching. It was this he tapped into, drawing light from the trunk and into the branches, extending from his fingertips, channeled by his wand.

He saw Harry's magic, too; a tiny seedling, undeveloped by time. It was this he sang to, coaxing it to grow like he was stoking a shy fire. After some encouragement, the little flame grew in brightness, travelling in Harry's nervous system to where a great mist of darkness lingered; an echo of the curse that slaughtered his parents and left such a mark on him.

Severus continued to sing. He had no idea what he was saying, or in what language. It was a unique skill he possessed that he'd discovered some time between his second and third year of Hogwarts. Unreliable, fickle, inexplicable... He hadn't found, in all of his library research, a record of any other witch or wizard able to access this part of themselves.

Perhaps it was what made him such a skilled occlumens; perhaps a lack of humanity (it was possible, somewhere on his mother's line, there was dark creature blood on their family tree). The only thing that mattered was that it worked.

Harry's inner fire battled the darkness consuming his brain. Every time it threatened to dim, Severus sang it back into full light, . It felt a little like trying to light the night with a single candle, but when Severus drew the magic from himself to feed Harry's fire, the brightness inside the tiny body grew.

Inside Severus, however, the tree began to wither. At first only a little; roots drying, shrivelling. Branches falling off.

Then a black hole appeared in the center of it, spreading outwards. Was he taking on the rot of Voldemort's curse inside himself?

_ It's for Lily. You deserve it. Save the boy. _

He sang Harry's fire into blazing brightness, until no speck of darkness remained anywhere inside him. Infected fluid spilled from his exposed brain. The organ itself returned to a gentle pink color. Severus pried open his bleary eyes and pointed to Lupin, who seemed to shake himself out of a trance. As though finishing a jigsaw puzzle, he slotted the piece of Harry's skull back where it belonged.

Further singing knitted the bone back together, then the flesh, then the skin. Only when Harry was whole again, sleeping peacefully, did Severus realize he was utterly spent; that there wasn't an ounce of energy left in his body.

He collapsed where he stood. He would've collapsed, had Remus not caught him. Supported him. "Severus!"

"You know," Snape replied, drunk and dizzy on successful, impossible magic. "I don't think I've ever heard you say my name before."

He might even have smiled before he lost consciousness completely, and all was kind, forgiving black.


End file.
